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Q&A: What is 2Pac's Criminal Record?

Part 1 of our Q&A series delving into the question's the masses really care about in hip-hop.

He shot an off-duty cop, served 9 months prison for rape and had a public court case against former Vice President Dan Quayle for his music.

His family were core members of the Black Panthers so 2Pac was watched by the FBI for a big chunk of his life. As the youngest chairman of the New African Panthers he got even more attention. There’s a 4000 page dossier compiled by the FBI with only 100-odd pages released.

With the help of Mutulu Shakur from prison, he started a movement entitled "Thug Life". Tupac helped enforce truces between rival gangs, including the bloods and the crips under "Thug Life". The master plan was to get them to stop killing one another, unite, police their communities, and eventually fight the government. He wanted to turn gang bangers into soldiers, a street militia. Afterward his life goes to shit and he to be getts arrested and targeted by police on a weekly basis, mostly baseless, but people only remember him getting arrested, not acquitted. His "out of control" image increases.

Fun fact: his pregnant mom was pictured on the front page of a US newspaper (can’t remember which) 7 months before 2Pac was even born. The kid was literally born infamous.